On October 7, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) announced a new acquisition, the Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) Framework for Strategic Commercial Enhancements, focused on new and emerging commercial capabilities.
“We’ve seen an explosion of innovation on the commercial side,” said Dr. Chris Scolese, NRO director, who announced the BAA during his keynote remarks at the United States Geospatial Intelligence Forum’s GEOINT Symposium. “This BAA Framework will allow the NRO to rapidly explore, assess, and leverage innovative industry capabilities to meet new intelligence challenges and inform operational requirements.”
Under the new BAA Framework for Strategic Commercial Enhancements, the NRO plans to release independent focus areas multiple times per year. The BAA Framework and the first focus area, commercial radar capabilities, will be open to offerors across industry, including foreign-owned U.S. companies.
The NRO’s diversified architecture—comprised of national and commercial satellites, large and small constellations, working across multiple orbits—provides increased flexibility and capacity, greater responsiveness, and improved resiliency. Leveraging commercial capabilities to the maximum extent possible to meet mission requirements allows the NRO to reserve national assets for the most stressing and sensitive missions.
Focused on commercial imagery and data, this BAA builds on the success of the NRO’s Commercial Systems Program Office’s (CSPO) earlier study efforts and creates additional opportunities to expand NRO’s commitment to new and emerging commercial capabilities. It is specifically designed to explore and push forward new phenomenologies, including commercial radar, hyperspectral imagery, and radio frequency remote sensing, as well as emerging and evolving electro-optical capabilities. The Strategic Commercial Enhancements framework will reach across disciplines to drive innovation and explore new phenomenologies, while examining emerging and evolving capabilities.
“The breadth of this framework ensures we have access to the data and providers needed to deliver value today, assess mission utility with our mission partners, and inform the Intelligence Community and Department of Defense’s future needs,” said Pete Muend, CSPO’s director.
The new BAA Framework and first focus area will be available at https://acq.westfields.net.
Source: NRO
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